Day 340 of the challenge! The Night Eats the World is pretty quiet for a zombie flick, but it’s prob all the better for it.
At this point, everybody has a hot take on what a good zombie flick should be. Some of us prefer fast and feral zombies, like those in Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake or 28 Days Later (technically not zombies, but you know what I mean. Train to Busan might be a better example). Others will always stand by the Romero inspired classics, and some of us even prefer zombie flicks that have an overtly satirical and comedic bite to them like Shaun of the Dead or Night of the Living Deb (looking at you too The Return of the Living Dead). Hell, there’s even a zombie Christmas musical coming out later this year in Anna and the Apocalypse (which I’m hoping to include in the challenge before it’s FINALLY over). 25 more!!
Anyway, the whole point of this is to emphasize that there’s a zombie movie out there for everybody, each with there own quirks and rules. The Night Eats the World, however, is a melancholic character study that ignores everything you would expect from a traditional zombie movie, nearly casting them aside in favor of focusing on the loneliness one might expect from surviving a zombie outbreak. There’s no mad dash to reach a safe zone, the zombies are silent, devoid of their expected moaning and snarling (a brave creative choice that makes them that much creepier to me I realized), and our hero is a depressed and introverted musician (not a righteous sheriff or determined father figure trying to keep others safe).
The Night Eats the World is simply a movie about a man that’s suddenly left by himself for a little too long, and it just happens to feature zombies too. Based on that, I know this movie won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. I can already hear all the “No gore, no chases, no action?!? UGH, THIS IS BORING!” type reactions. But I would argue it’s different instead of boring, and sometimes, different is good.